Early Monday morning, DJ Danielson and I went to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Bloomington to watch Robert Erickson and seven others turn themselves into the authorities for deportation as illegal European Immigrants.
Robert Erickson claimed that as a European immigrant, he is part of the group of people who are responsible for the largest genocide in history committed against the Native peoples of the “Americas” and that he and his immigrant ancestors never obtained any legal status from the people who were inhabiting this land before they colonized it for their own self-serving purposes.
Thirty supporters, including members of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition, were present to document the reaction of ICE and to provide encouragement for the self-deporters who took part in what a representative of the self-described “Federal Protective Service” officers called a “major demonstration” as they communicated with each other on walkie-talkies and phones.
Here’s some of my raw footage of Robert Erickson and the other protesters turning themselves in:
Here’s Erickson’s speech:
Hi everyone, my name is Robert Erickson and I’m really excited to be here! Its people like you and events like this that make our country great! Give yourselves a round of applause!
We have a problem in this country. Illegal immigration has been a blemish on the face of America for hundreds of years, and the time has come to set things right.
Now let me be clear! I’m not against legal immigration. If these Illegal Europeans want to get in line and apply for citizenship with the tribal counsel like everybody else, they’re more than welcome to! But there will be no shortcuts, or special privileges for the perpetrators of genocide!
Columbus is the original illegal immigrant — his arrival, along with the anchor babies he brought with him, signaled the beginning of the colonization of America. He came without papers and didn’t ask for permission. Through policies of ethnic cleansing and extermination, the original pilgrims stole this land from real Americans, killing more than 30 million North Americans in the worst genocide in human history.
Behind me is the ICE detention center. Their job is to apprehend and deport criminal illegal aliens, but they seem to be confused about who the illegals are. For years, they have been wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, while failing to apprehend a single illegal European immigrant. Instead they have focused on terrorizing undocumented Americans who are native to this continent. I want to be clear — undocumented Americans share very little in common with the illegal European settlers who came to America seeking gold and plunder, eventually stealing all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific under a doctrine of manifest destiny. Undocumented Americans come here out of economic necessity to find work and try to feed their families. They should not be targeted by ICE, which should be tracking down the real criminals.
The same illegal Europeans who colonized North America are now enacting a second conquest on Central and South America through their neo-liberal economic policies like NAFTA, which forces Mexican farmers to compete with subsidized U.S. corporate agribusiness, and drives the prices down so far they are unable to make a profit. In fact the U.S. corn subsidies are ten times the entire Mexican agricultural budget. This leaves them with only 2 choices: starve to death, or migrate north to a land overrun by illegal European immigrants. Just as the original pilgrims profited from the exploitation and murder of indigenous Americans, modern day pilgrims are reaping massive profits by displacing indigenous Central and South Americans from their rightful homelands through economic conquest.
It’s time to say enough is enough! Are you with me? Are you with me? Alright! I’m calling for a national back to Europe movement this Thanksgiving and asking that all illegal Europeans report themselves to ICE for voluntary self deportation. We have to save America from the evils of illegal immigration, and the best place to start is with ourselves! I understand that not everyone is ready to make the commitment to self-deportation. Dakota people now retain less than 1 percent of their original homelands, so one thing you can do is to donate money as reparations to the Dakota people, to help them raise funds to buy back some of their land for traditional cultural activities. You can find resources for action at unsettlingminnesota.org.
But I can no longer stand hiding in the shadows. Do we want to see our children living as a burden to Americans on stolen land? Do we want to leave future generations trapped in this cycle of deceit and injustice? I’m ready to do what’s best for America! Who’s with me?
Columbus go home! Columbus go home! Columbus go home!
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